Last Playground

by Geoff North

  Gunnarson stood shakily to his feet, still chuckling. He spotted the detonator a few feet away and scooped it up into his pocket. “The asteroid’s gone, Angus—blown to smithereens.” The smile disappeared. Amy had gone up with it. “I rigged the explosives trigger with a simultaneous transport to New Hamden City. I attached a receiving beacon chip inside Reginald before you left. I wasn’t all that sure it would work since I never had the time to test it beforehand. Unfortunately, the damn thing deposited me thirty miles outside the city. It took some time making my way to you. And thank the good Lord I also programmed in a second transport option—one back to the old farmhouse—just in case my first jump was into hostile territory.”

  “It’s all hostile territory these days,” Lowe added.

  Gunnarson brushed dust away from his tattered jumpsuit and furrowed his brow. “What happened to the rest of you? Where are Oscar and the girls?”

  Reginald performed a series of spins. He rolled forward six feet, and rolled back again. “Pipes took Brinn away just before you arrived—her and someone else. Oscar…Oscar didn’t make it.”

  Gunnarson looked even more confused. “What about the others?—the barbarian broad, the diseased kid, and the vampire girl?”

  “What’s a ‘broad’?” Bertha asked, stepping through a gaping hole in the side of the house.

  Esme and Paris followed. “It’s an unflattering word for a woman, and I’m a lot more than a ‘vampire girl.’”

  “Hey, at least he didn’t call you the ‘diseased’ one,” Parris muttered.

  Selma and an older woman helped a small boy out into the light.

  Lowe resisted the urge to go for his rifle. They didn’t look that threatening. Nor did he, Lowe supposed, standing bow-legged in front of them with one boot. “Who are them two?”

  Erin Stauch spotted Commander Gunnarson and had to hold Logan’s shoulder for support. She was finding it difficult remembering how to stand staring at the man.

  “Herb?”

  It took Gunnarson a few seconds to return her dumbfounded stare. He knew who she was—had known her—as a younger woman. But his wife never had the chance to grow so old.

  “Amy?” He approached and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. She ran a finger down the outline of his square jaw. Their hands fell away slowly at the same time. The touches weren’t necessary. Words weren’t needed. Herb and Amy were long gone. These two people may have shared a common bond, but they had never met. As familiar as they seemed to one another, they were strangers. And it was probably best they remained so.

  Selma broke the silence between them. “Where’s Brinn?”

  Introductions and stories were exchanged. Reginald was about to explain Neal’s resurrection, but Lowe silenced him with an elbow to the side. “Not yet,” he whispered to the robot. “We don’t even know if they survived the fire.”

  “The wannasee made it into the house,” Bertha said. “I didn’t think we’d get out of the cellar alive, but something spooked them off a few minutes ago.”

  The ground shook beneath their feet.

  Logan squeezed his grandmother’s hand. “They’re coming back?”

  “No,” the marshal answered. “That ain’t wannasee.”

  Reginald spun in the direction where New Hamden City had once stood. “The fire will be here soon.”

  They all turned and saw the wall of black smoke beginning on the horizon. There was another tremor and then the sound came, like a million freight trains derailing at the same moment. Total conflagration. The black was blotted out suddenly by a blinding line of orange and white.

  “It’s gathering intensity as it spreads, even with nothing out there to burn,” Gunnarson said. His face wore a conflicted expression of shock mixed with scientific wonder. “The fire is drawing what energy is left in the ground and converting it into raw fuel. How is that possible?”

  Reginald began to herd them towards the house. “You can do a study on it once we get these folks through the window portal and back to safety.”

  Erin was about to argue that she wasn’t going anywhere without her granddaughter. Selma stood defiantly at her side. The ground shuddered again. There was a loud groan from the house. Lowe grabbed Esme and pulled her away as the veranda started to collapse. It came down fast, pulling the second story with it.

  Reginald rolled in and tried to stop it with his rubber arms. He was too late. The northeast side fell on top of him. He emerged from the dusty rubble half a minute later, his roll a little wobbly, but his mechanical body still intact. Neal’s bedroom was gone. Pieces of window frame that had once acted as a doorway between worlds were covered over in a ton of worn shingles, shattered bricks, and faded siding.

  “No,” Selma whimpered. She sank to the ground in a heap. “I can’t stay…here. I have to go home.”

  Lowe looked down at the crying girl. What was it Brinn had said about her to Emma back in the Gloom Room? I have a friend who’s a lot like you. She’s always acting tough. Pretending to be something she isn’t.

  “What do we do now, Gramma?” Logan asked.

  Erin couldn’t answer him. She didn’t know of another way home. She didn’t even know where they were. She looked questioningly to the man that looked so much like her husband from over three decades past. No, she thought again. Erin only asked for his guidance these days through prayers. She turned to the rugged cowboy. As silly as he appeared with his big toe sticking through a hole in one sock, he definitely had the look of someone that knew how to take charge.

  He shrugged. “I reckon we could head in the opposite direction of the fire. We won’t be able to outrun it, but maybe it will die out some before it reaches us.”

  “Not a chance,” Gunnarson said. “That thing’s growing, picking up speed.”

  Esme turned to Paris. “Can you summon up another force field?”

  “No way. I can barely stay standing.”

  Logan was staring into the wall of advancing flame. Its intensity glittered in his big brown eyes. “I wanna go back in the cellar.”

  Gunnarson leapt at the idea. “That might just work. If we can’t outrun it, maybe we can take refuge beneath it.”

  “I predict a low probability of survival, Commander,” Reginald said. “Even if we had the time to remove all the rubble blocking the cellar entrance—time we don’t have—the extreme temperature radiating from that flame would still incinerate us. And even if we survived the heat, the oxygen depletion would suffocate everyone but yours truly.”

  “It can’t end this way!” Gunnarson had to shout. The roar, as loud as a million derailing freight trains, was making it hard for them to hear each other. “There has to be a way out of this!”

  At a thousand feet away the fire was deafening. At five hundred it became almost unbearable to watch, like staring into a mile-high strip of exploding supernovas. And at half that distance—which it covered in half a minute—it started to hurt. They backed away, into the rubble of fallen house. Logan stumbled on a broken brick and his grandmother stood protectively in front of him. From his position lying on the ground, the little boy could see up to the outer reaches of the pyre.

  “Up there!” he pointed into the billowing wall of gray smoke. “It’s a bird!”

  Lowe’s sharp eye caught it next. “That ain’t no bird.”

  They watched as the little black-and-white speck swooped through the smoke. It dropped down in front of the fire, growing in size and form.

  The smoldering super-hero landed with a thump in front of the group. His hair and face were covered in soot and ash, and in his arms he held a squirming bundle, wrapped loosely in his great white cape.

  “Sorry it took us so long to get here,” Pipes said, placing the cape and its contents carefully to the ground. “The faster I flew, the harder it was for my passengers to breathe. I had to slow down quite a bit and wrap ’em up for safety.”

  Brinn wriggled her way out and squinted at the bright light. She coughed as the heat
seared her lungs.

  Erin ignored the heat and smoke. She hobbled to her granddaughter—the pain in her side forgotten—and hugged her tightly. There wasn’t time to exchange words. Within moments their reunion would be over. There wouldn’t be enough time for Pipes to whisk them all off to safety.

  The hero picked Neal back up, still wrapped snugly within the cape’s folds, and spotted Logan next. He only had enough time to save two or three of them. The children, he decided. It was a hard decision for someone like him to make, but he acted on it quickly.

  Logan kicked at him as he reached down.

  “NO! I won’t leave Gramma!”

  Pipes went for his arm and the boy twisted away. “Cumoola Ding Guy!” he shouted.

  Pipes ignored the outburst and picked him up.

  “Cumoola Ding Guy! Cumoola Ding Guy!” He pounded at the hero’s shoulder and neck with his little fists. “Cumoola Ding Guy!”

  A wave of cool air rushed over them from behind the wreckage of the farmhouse. It hit the fire a hundred feet away, creating a wall of hissing steam. The damp air continued to blow around them, slamming into the flames. A warm mist covered the stunned onlookers. The clothes they wore stuck to their hot skin, becoming wetter and cooler with every refreshing buffet the wind threw at the fire.

  And then it began to rain.

  The flames still licked the sky at an incredible height but its advance had stopped.

  “Cumoola Ding Guy,” Logan said with satisfaction. His face beamed in the firelight and glistened as droplets of water ran down his cheeks.

  “Cumoola-what?” Lowe asked, wiping moisture away from his own craggy face.

  Brinn was laughing. “Cumoola Ding Guy. Our dad used to tell us stories about a great cloud monster named Cumulus Dingus.”

  “I believe your father meant to say cumulonimbus,” Reginald corrected.

  “No, it was supposed to be Cumulus Dingus. Dad can be such a smart ass. Poor Logan couldn’t even pronounce that name right. He used to tape crayon drawings all over the house of this giant cloud creature coming down from the sky. He must have made a thousand—”

  Brinn stopped talking and the smile dropped from her face as multiple bolts of lightening flashed overhead. They intensified, forking out in all directions, illuminating the sky enough for them all to see the rain clouds taking form in the east.

  Columns of condensed moisture rotated in a counter-clockwise motion and coalesced into a monstrously disfigured human shape. It was gray and purple with swirling eddies of glowing green for eyes. The city-sized feet touched the ground and its misshapen head separated from the endless banks of black above.

  Brinn’s skyscraper creation had been immense. This thing was unimaginable.

  Its mile-wide mouth opened and the thunder sounded.

  And it started towards them.

  The rain hit them sideways. It felt like belly-flopping into a lake while still standing. Everyone was knocked down, gasping for air and spitting up cold water. It pushed them back like leaves in the wind. Pipes was the only one that held his ground. He turned away from the rain, protecting the bundle in his cape. Brinn and Selma were screaming, but no one could hear them over the cloud monster’s thunderous roar. Gunnarson was hit with a particularly harsh blast. It sent him reeling into a backwards summersault. Incredible, he thought, straining to see through the rain if the fire had started to recede. It had been extinguished completely.

  A few seconds later the downpour ended as well.

  The jagged maw of Cumoola Ding Guy’s mouth turned up at the corners into a black smile. It pointed down at the drenched bunch and winked. Logan grinned back and gave it the thumbs-up. The creature began to lose form. Within moments it dissipated completely, sucked back into the clouds that had birthed it.

  Pipes picked his way through the muddy ashes and puddles, helping people to their feet and checking to see if they were alright. In his one arm he held the precious bundle still wrapped within his wet cape. Brinn went to her brother. Gramma Erin was holding his shaking form tightly against her.

  “How long have you been able to do that, you little brat?”

  Logan grinned proudly. “First time.”

  Gunnarson stood next to them, his dirty silver spacesuit now a muddy, dripping mess. “It would appear this young man has inherited some pretty mighty genes.”

  Erin kissed the top of the boy’s damp head repeatedly. She took Brinn’s hand and squeezed. “We saw your mother. She helped your friends back here in time to save us.”

  Brinn was speechless.

  Logan pulled away from his grandmother’s hug. “She’s okay, Brinn. I saw her too. Mom’s happy, and she said for you to quit being so darn hard on yourself… Well, she said something like that.”

  Erin Stauch nodded. “It was exactly like that.”

  Brinn turned to Selma. “Did you see her? Did she know who you were?”

  The girl was staring at her muddy shoes, unable to meet Brinn’s eyes. “She knows who I am… She’s always known.”

  A patch of blue broke through from above. The clouds parted a bit more, revealing the steady, strong sun at high noon, on a new day and a new beginning. The heat washed over them. It was a good warmth.

  Marshal Lowe bent down to retrieve his hat from the mud. He found a half bottle of whiskey lying beneath it. He popped the cork out with his teeth instinctively, but stopped himself from taking a swig when it was inches from his lips. He dropped the bottle back into the mud and watched the brown contents leak out into a waiting puddle. He didn’t need it. The world had changed today, and so had the lawman. He ran a weathered hand down the stubble on his chin. He wanted a fresh shave—maybe use the old straight edge every morning from here on in.

  Esme was holding Paris in her arms. They were both sitting in their own puddle of rain water and rejuvenated earth. He hugged her back, and his hand settled gently against her stomach. Their lips met.

  Any confusion or jealously Brinn may have felt over their situation evaporated as quickly as the clouds above their heads. Her heart was overjoyed to see them like this.

  Only Bertha seemed unaffected by the good feelings radiating amongst their little group. She sneered at the hugs, and kisses, and crying. But somewhere deep down inside, the barbarian woman was proud to share their company.

  The muddy bundle of white cape squirmed in Pipes’s mighty arms. Reginald rolled up to him, blinking red. “Is he alright?”

  Pipes opened the folds and helped the boy to the ground. “I held on to him through fire and rain… I think he can manage on his own now.”

  Neal yawned and rubbed his eyes. The first person he saw was Erin Stauch. His initial reaction was similar to Gunnarson’s. He knew her, but she was different. Neal leaned back into Pipes, unsure what to do next.

  Marshal Lowe took his hand and led him to her. “It’s okay, partner. That is yer mom.”

  Logan slipped out of his grandmother’s arms and Brinn helped the woman to her feet. She looked at her granddaughter with questioning eyes. Brinn nodded. “Yes, Gramma... He’s alive, and we’ve brought him home.”

  Neal stood before his mother and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry I’ve been gone so long.”

  Her hands shook as she took his head between her fingers. She knelt down and smelled his hair. She kissed his forehead gently and whispered, “You’ve come back… You’ve come back.” Erin sank to her knees and hugged him, nestling her head into his chest.

  Neal hugged her back.

  Chapter 29

  Bertha and Lowe sat atop the pile of boulders where a few days before they had taken a stand against hordes of wannasee. The fire had consumed what was left of the bodies and the rain had cleansed the stones even further.

  They watched as the sun started to melt into the western horizon.

  “I missed the color,” he said quietly.

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  “The color in the sky,” he continued. “Yesterday the sun rose in the middle of the
afternoon and set sometime before supper. It used to be weak and dull yellow… Now it’s got some backbone, bright and long in the day, full of character at the comin’ of night. Just look at it—all that red and pink—that’s the way a sunset should look.”

  “I wonder how many sunsets there’ll be.”

  “I don’t follow you. Everything’s as it was. Neal’s alive, and the world—all of his worlds—are thriving.”

  “Yes, he’s living again, but that means he’ll continue growing, too. What will happen when he enters his teen years? When his interests turn to girls instead of cowboys and robots, what will become of all this then?”

  Lowe wasn’t much for deep thinking; nor was Bertha, he suspected. He scratched away again at the stubble on his face. That shave couldn’t come soon enough. “Did your world up and crumble when Brinn entered her teenage years?”

  She thought about it. “My country has always been at war.”

  “But that’s the way it always was. And them other two, Esme and Paris, their places kept on going after Brinn was finished with them. Heck, by the looks of things, they got on better without her. No, what happened here wasn’t meant to be. Things will be different this time.”

  Bertha had fashioned a stone she’d found into a sharpening tool for her sword. She ran it down one edge and up the other. She found it difficult talking to men this way. “So what happens to all of us now? Are we stuck in this world?”

  “Reckon I am. As far as the rest of you are concerned, well, I just don’t rightly know. The portal back to Neal and Brinn’s world has been lost, but I wouldn’t sell that boy short. He’ll find a way to get you all back where you belong.”

  “You… You would never consider leaving this place?” She met his eyes briefly. “Perhaps you would visit mine?”

  “It’s a mighty fine offer, but these plains will need lawmen again. I ain’t much good at most things, but I know a thing or two ’bout keeping the peace. I’ll be needed here.”